Carrie Mae Weems
Untitled (man smoking) from Kitchen Table Series, 1990
From the Catalogue:
“Long before I picked up a camera I was deeply concerned with the ways in which …
Steeped in African-American history, Carrie Mae Weems’s works explore issues of race, class, and gender identity. Primarily working in photography and video, but also exploring everything from verse to performance, Weems has said that regardless of medium, activism is a central concern of her practice—specifically, looking at history as a way of better understanding the present. “Photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change,” she has said. “I for one will continue to work toward this end.” She rose to prominence with her “Kitchen Table Series” in the early 1990s, whose photographs depict the artist seated at her kitchen table and examine various tropes and stereotypes of of African-American life. Most recently, her achievements were recognized with a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation.
From the Catalogue:
“Long before I picked up a camera I was deeply concerned with the ways in which ¬African-Americans were depicted, and, for the most part, I didn’t like what I saw. So one way of dealing with it was to step in and rethink how black women, more specifically, need to be represented.” Carrie Mae Weems
…
Steeped in African-American history, Carrie Mae Weems’s works explore issues of race, class, and gender identity. Primarily working in photography and video, but also exploring everything from verse to performance, Weems has said that regardless of medium, activism is a central concern of her practice—specifically, looking at history as a way of better understanding the present. “Photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change,” she has said. “I for one will continue to work toward this end.” She rose to prominence with her “Kitchen Table Series” in the early 1990s, whose photographs depict the artist seated at her kitchen table and examine various tropes and stereotypes of of African-American life. Most recently, her achievements were recognized with a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation.
![Carrie Mae Weems, ‘Untitled - Man Eating Lobster [From the Carrie Mae Weems: Kitchen Table Series]’, circa 1990](https://d7hftxdivxxvm.cloudfront.net/?resize_to=fit&width=160&height=200&quality=80&src=https%3A%2F%2Fd32dm0rphc51dk.cloudfront.net%2FVqvkd58Hu2auziybNsJIlA%2Flarge.jpg)
